Longer lasting nipples

[Nobade]

Last night I was playing with my White 91 rifle, caliber 375 (or is it .366?) shooting 300gr. paper patched boolits. The stainless steel nipple lasted about 20 shots before it was torched enough to start getting too much leakage. I know I should pony up for a platinum lined nipple from Buffalo Arms ($60), but for as little as this rifle gets shot I am wondering how long the Ampco nipples last? Anybody do a comparison?

The other question - I see Pedersoli touting Beryllium nipples for the Gibbs rifle, are they the same material?


-Nobade

[curator]

Nobade,

Ampco is another term for Beryllium alloy nipples. They do indeed last a lot longer than regular steel or stainless nipples when firing heavy charges and heavy bullets. Yes, Platinum lasts even longer. I have "burned out" one Ampco nipple in my Wesson .45 rifle but it took almost 800 rounds to do it. Ordinary steel nipples would only last about 40 shots until the hammer would be blown back to half cock. This is shooting a 475 grain slug with 75 grains of FFg black powder. The Platinum nipple I replaced it with is well over 500 round count and no apparent flash hole enlargement. Ampco nipple on my round ball rifles may be "everlasting" since they operate at significantly less pressure.

[Omnivore]

According to ampcometal.com, AMPCO metal (AMPCO being the name of the company) can be any of several alloys containing a combination of aluminum, iron and copper. Others also contain some manganese and nickel, and I see one that has 2% silicon, and one or two have a small amount of tin. Several have "other" listed as being no more than 0.5%. I don't see beryllium mentioned, but I haven't searched hard for it. Basically it can be said that AMPCO is aluminum, iron and copper. Anyway; it is strangely strong metal for having that description.

[Nobade]

Thanks guys, looks like Ampco is a good way to go until I can get a platinum lined one. Track is out, have to look around and find one now....

-Nobade

[koehlerrk]

Nobade, try the Possible Shop.

http://possibleshop.com/s-s-nipples.html

I've found stuff through him that Track doesn't carry... and his site, while not real fancy, has a lot of info, and if you get stuck, call him. I had to order some oddball nipples for my brother for an old double-barrel BP shotty... not only did he know what I needed, he had them in stock and shipped them the next day. Definitely an interesting place to look around.

[Pyro&Black]

Last night I was playing with my White 91 rifle, caliber 375 (or is it .366?) shooting 300gr. paper patched boolits. The stainless steel nipple lasted about 20 shots before it was torched enough to start getting too much leakage. I know I should pony up for a platinum lined nipple from Buffalo Arms ($60), but for as little as this rifle gets shot I am wondering how long the Ampco nipples last? Anybody do a comparison?


That seems odd to have issues like that after 20 shots.
Are you priming the nipple before every shot?
Are you using a musket nipple? Which one?
What powder and how many grains normally?
How loose are your bullets when loading?

[Boz330]

Nobade, the stainless steel nipples that I mentioned a long time back hold up about the best going and at a 1/4 of the cost of Platinum. Beryllium might last 200, or that is what I got out of one I had in my Gibbs. I have one of the stainless nipples in the Gibbs now and it has over 200 rounds through it with no enlargement so far. Load is 95gr 1.5 Kik with a 535gr boolit. Other guys have 1000+ through their Gibbs before having problems.
That thread was something like Rocket engineers and shooters drinking beer. The guy who sells them posted at the end and he has a website.

Bob

[Boz330]

Hear you go. He has a web site and I will try and get a link to it.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?198548-What-happens-when-you-get-rocket-enginners-and-ML-shooters-drinking-beer/page2


Bob

Bob

[Boz330]

The link http://www.shootingsight.com/
It has been several years since this project and the perpetrator, my best friend, passed a year ago so I'm not sure what the status is anymore but when my nipple wears out I'll be looking into getting another one. You will notice that business hours are in the evenings because this guy is an engineer for GE jet engine division as a day job.

Bob

[Nobade]

Thanks Bob, I remember that thread from a way back. I'll have to get in touch with them and see if they still make those nipples. That would be an interesting thing to try.

I just ordered some AMPCO ones from The Gunworks, I'll see how those hold up as well.

As a reply to Pyro&Black, this rifle, a 375 caliber, (and my 35 caliber Rem 700ML) are very hard on nipples. Evidently smaller bores build a lot more pressure than bigger ones, since my 45 and 50 caliber bullet firing rifles don't eat nipples much at all. But these smallbore ones sure do. The load in this one I was using is a 300gr. paper patched bullet, a lubed felt wad, a .030" poly wad, and 75gr. Old "E" FFg. As you can tell, that is a whole lot of powder in such a small hole, with a very long bullet in front of it. I would love to know what sort of pressure it generates, but don't really have a way to measure that. Next time I get to shoot this White, I'll take the chronograph to see what sort of speed it generates. That should be interesting.

-Nobade

[Boz330]

Heavy long boolit, there is a lot of friction.

Bob

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I've never done this, but here is the URL of a company in the UK from which I buy sometimes gold, silver, tools etc. It rather confusingly lists platinum tube under bullion, although it isn't much like the bricks of the stuff Nazis were reputed to sink in mountain lakes.

http://www.cooksongold.com/Tube/-Alloy=Platinum_Tube/-Size=0/-Type=0/Tube/Gw-Platinum-Tube-Ref-12----------Outside-Diameter-1.6mm------------Inside-Diameter-1.0mm-0.3mm-Wall-prcode-RXA-012

Platinum tubing of 1.6mm OD and 1mm. ID costs about $15 plus tax for 12mm. length, and the nature of the stuff is not to vary much in price on the international market. That isn't cheap, but it isn't $60. A tiny taper pin reamer would cut a die in which you could size it down to a taper, and if need be ream an annealed nipple to match. Then it could be silver soldered.

I wonder if anybody has established how the erosion is divided between primer and powder? I would think the latter mostly, but the primer gases are hotter. It wouldn't be hard to fire a lot of primers from an otherwise unloaded firearm, and anybody who condemns a muzzle loader could inform us all by screwing a capless nipple into the barrel, and seeing what powder gases alone do.

Beryllium copper and the Ampco alloy aren't that hard, and the fact that they erode so much slower than hardened steel suggests that thermal crazing, through rapid expansion and contraction, are the main cause. I find that convincing about bore erosion anyway. It would explain why bore erosion escalates dramatically with strings of rapid fire, but then not in proportion with machine-guns. They only cool down once.

I would have expected a long-bullet, heavy-charge smallbore to erode nipples faster, but perhaps not as much faster as some describe. I wonder if the shape of the hole matters? A venture shape makes the primer gases faster than a straight one, and would improve ignition if it needs improving - which with good powder it may not. But it also accelerates what comes in the other direction.

[451 Pete]

Lining a percussion nipple with platinum is nothing new. Some original rifles made well over 100 years ago still have the platinum nipples that they came with which should attest to their longevity. A source for getting one of these that is not mentioned here in this thread is Buffalo Arms and you will find them listed under muzzle loading supplies on his web site.


Pete

[Pyro&Black]

Thanks Bob, I remember that thread from a way back. I'll have to get in touch with them and see if they still make those nipples. That would be an interesting thing to try.

I just ordered some AMPCO ones from The Gunworks, I'll see how those hold up as well.

As a reply to Pyro&Black, this rifle, a 375 caliber, (and my 35 caliber Rem 700ML) are very hard on nipples. Evidently smaller bores build a lot more pressure than bigger ones, since my 45 and 50 caliber bullet firing rifles don't eat nipples much at all. But these smallbore ones sure do. The load in this one I was using is a 300gr. paper patched bullet, a lubed felt wad, a .030" poly wad, and 75gr. Old "E" FFg. As you can tell, that is a whole lot of powder in such a small hole, with a very long bullet in front of it. I would love to know what sort of pressure it generates, but don't really have a way to measure that. Next time I get to shoot this White, I'll take the chronograph to see what sort of speed it generates. That should be interesting.

-Nobade

You splained' it well...... thanks.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Lining a percussion nipple with platinum is nothing new. Some original rifles made well over 100 years ago still have the platinum nipples that they came with which should attest to their longevity. A source for getting one of these that is not mentioned here in this thread is Buffalo Arms and you will find them listed under muzzle loading supplies on his web site.


Pete

It came very early in the percussion period, and didn't start with nipples. When shooters were still in superstitious awe of a barrel with no holes in it, it was considered safer to have a tiny vent hole (Heaven knows why, since it was far smaller than the vent-hole of any flintlock, but then, Nikita Kruschev couldn't understand why American 1950s cars had tail-fins.) This hole was usually lined with platinum, and ended with a platinum disc on the outside. Old ones are most often blocked, and I wouldn't be surprised if some were never drilled though steel at all. This picture is my double rifle by Kehlner of Prague.


135009

[Nobade]

I got to shoot the White today with the new Ampco nipple. 20 rounds, and the hole is about twice as big as when I started. I think I'll leave it in there though, and see if it stabilizes or keeps getting bigger. It kind of messes with your vertical when every shot has a different size hole. I did learn that cork wads help a lot. They cut group sizes in half, but it's still not as good as I would like. I'll keep working with it.

-Nobade

[Boz330]

I checked my SS nipple in my Gibbs the other night and it is still .025 which I believe is where it started, after 300 rounds.

Bob

[Nobade]

Gotta get me one of those. Been meaning to get in touch with those guys, guess the time is getting closer. Thanks!

-Nobade